


if all is lost as one

by Neffectual



Series: From An In-Ring Perspective [13]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Loss, M/M, Post-Break Up, Self-Reflection, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8038600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: Seth's so certain of who he is. Dean knows Seth's very soul. Roman has held Seth's heart in his hands. How could they all get it so wrong?





	if all is lost as one

**Author's Note:**

> People have said I'm only good at angst and smut. So here's some of the former. It's a bad month for me.  
> Title from 'Lost As One' by Brother & Bones

When it’s offered to him, Seth would like to say the choice was easy, that he didn’t have to take the time to choose. That he didn’t go back and fall into Roman’s arms like they were an absolution, that he didn’t let Dean unknowingly kiss the stress from him. He’d like to be able to say that he never took calls from Hunter in the bathroom of their shared room, never whispered words of promise and threat in their safe harbour, never made somewhere that was supposed to be about them be about someone else. So many nights he’d like to say he didn’t lie between them, caged by their bodies, and think about getting out while it was still good, while they could still stand to look at him, while they still loved him.

He’d like to say he deserved that love, once upon a time, that once it hadn’t been a betrayal of the word. He’d like to say he meant it, when he told them that they’d always be together, that he’d always love them, that he was theirs and theirs alone. He doesn’t know, now, if that would be a lie. He knows that his heart is aching, knows each breath is hard to draw in, that his head feels fuzzy and numb, that he can’t cry because to let one tear out would be to never stop. No, that’s not true. He can’t cry, because he doesn’t deserve the chance to cry; they’re the ones who are hurting, he put them all in this awful, untenable situation, and he can’t be allowed to be upset about it. You’re not allowed to be upset when you’re the one fucking up the lives of two other people, he knows that, he doesn’t get to be redeemed simply by this being hard on him, too.

So Seth wishes he could say he hadn't thought twice about betraying them, hadn't slid into bed and wrapped himself in the warmth of them and fought from saying everything he was going to do to ruin them a thousand times over. He wishes he could say he hadn’t thought about chair shots while Roman was above him, inside him, while Dean mouthed at his neck like he was desperate for more than just a taste. Seth thinks, really, that no one’s ever had more than a taste of him, more than a tiny bite, a tiny piece, because it’s all he’s capable of giving to anyone, all he’s capable of giving up, the rest of him so wrapped up tight and kept safe from grasping hands. He’s never given himself to anyone – just let himself be taken, and tried to act like that should be enough for them to cope with.

It's fucked up, and he knows it’s fucked up to be lying on 400 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and wishing for rough polycotton, the edges marred with old stains, the crinkle of the mattress protector underneath, but it’s not the bed he misses. He misses the way the room was never empty, even when they weren’t there, that they always left a presence with him, always left a space for him, gave him room to breathe while holding him in crushing hugs. Even alone in the bed, if he closes his eyes, he can pretend they’re just down in the gym, or getting something to eat, that any moment, someone will knock on that door, or barge through after scraping the key at the lock for too long, that Roman and Dean will tumble through the door, already kissing, unafraid of who might see them, unafraid to be in love. He never had that, was always pushing them away in public, never wanted anyone to know in case they knew he had a weakness. Turns out, he was the weakness all along, and that’s something that feels like being stabbed in the heart, a short-sharp pain that mellows into a slow burn.

He flicks the light off and pulls the covers over him, not undressing. If he gets out of bed ten minutes later, and pulls two shirts from his luggage, dragging them to bed with him, and if the comforter shudders with silent sobs, well. There’s no one there to know.

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, it all comes down to what you think you’re worth. There's a line of it, tracing through Seth and connecting the two of them, Dean thinks, a line of worth where they're each tugging on an end and wondering why the ball of twine in the middle - Seth, as if it could be anyone else, it's always been Seth - is split two ways and coming apart. A line of worth, with Roman at one end, a worthy man, and Dean at the other, a worthy adversary, and they've been pulling at Seth for so long that they've forgotten to leave any worth in him. Or at least forgotten to tell him what they see.

Seth, who demanded so much and wanted everything they could give, and gave back so little. Dean wonders if he’s worked that out yet, that he’s such a bundle of neuroses that he was so easy to love, like walking backwards in the rain, like laughter in a crowded bar, like all the back slaps and quick grins. Seth is every night wrestling in crowded, hot, sweaty rooms that smelled of stale beer and vomit, every night in front of crowds who didn’t know your name and were just happy to be able to watch something amusing. Seth is how alive Dean has always felt after a good fuck or a good fight, glutted and full of self-confidence. If Seth didn’t exist, Dean thinks he would have had to make him up, just to have something to love so much and know so well, like he’s part of his soul.

When Dean thinks of his indie days, he imagines what it would have been like to have Seth at his side, finds it impossible that they never faced each other before FCW, because that first match had been electric, they’d known each other down to their cores, they’d been closer than if they were lovers then, in that second. Dean’s never felt more like a sinking ship when Seth’s in the ring with him, like there’s a hole blown in him and everything is spilling out, and it makes him greater, brighter, smarter and faster. It gives Seth an edge, too, makes him sharper than he has any right to be, shining like he’s the brightest star in the sky. Dean thinks that’s how Seth always sees himself, anyway – Seth is always either the best or the worst person in the room, and with Dean, he’s allowed to be both at once.

Seth’s love has always been like a drug, and Dean lapped it up like it wasn’t overflowing his mouth, like he’d lived on scraps his whole life and having Seth and Roman was like a banquet before a starving man. Nothing he deserved, nothing he put time and effort into, just something wonderful that landed in his lap and stayed there, as if they didn’t know they should be doing better. Now, Dean wonders what it feels like to hold a title in one hand and your lover’s faith in the other, and how you decide which one is more deserving of your time. He wonders, too, when Roman will make that choice, how far along the road they’ll be when his strong, quiet lover rolls over one night and puts his back to Dean like they were never brothers, never knew each other from the inside out, never leaned on each other in triumph and in loss. All he knows is that Seth wasn’t the first to see he was better off without Dean, and that he won’t be the last, either. And yet, Dean still looks at him like he’s that star, the only guiding light in the darkness. ‘Be anything’, it seems to say. ‘Be anything but me’.

 

* * *

 

There's something about standing on the edge of something after the middle has collapsed that makes Roman think of sandcastles, of hollowing out the wall to make an arch and watching as the eroding water did the rest, the high, perfect arch collapsing into the swell of the sea. Roman never could tell if it was his digging or the uncontrollable water that did the most damage, but in the end, the result has always been the same. Roman standing, at a distance, as he watches the water destroy something he put so much love into.

Seth was always their middle, right from the start of it all, when he shouldered his way into the ring and told them in no uncertain terms that they had to get on his level, or he was going to leave them behind. Roman tries not to begrudge him this – after all, he did warn them. Everything Seth ever did was tell them to run away from him, tell them to leave while they still had the breath to do so, tell them that he was going to take them to greatness and then dash them apart on the rocks. And isn’t that just like Seth, Roman thinks, just like Seth to do exactly what he set out to do, like the plan’s been there the entire time, and he’s just followed the lines already drawn. Roman wonders what he would have done if they’d taken his advice and got out while the getting was still good, wonders if there’s ever space in Seth’s plans for everyone not to adore him.

Being without him feels like swallowing cold water on an empty stomach, feeling the coolness all the way down, freezing him from the inside out and he wonders if that’s what Dean is now, a consolation, what’s left, the remains of something they both thought was working, but that Seth had clearly broken long ago. He wonders how many times Seth told them to leave him after getting off the phone with Triple H, wonders how many kisses were said in the same night as ‘I’ll leave them soon’, and can’t help but feel like the jilted husband. In truth, he knows he and Dean are closer to a mistress than something committed, because Seth’s one true love always has and always will be success. When they thought they could have it together, it was easy to laugh it off, to say they they’d take him where he wanted to go as they took him apart, and that laugh is like a rock in his stomach now.

Dean’s hand against his in the middle of the night feels like a promise, but it’s the same sort Seth used to make, and Roman’s not stupid, for all that he’s quiet and trips over his words, he knows that he was a fool to trust once. He doesn’t want to do that again, doesn’t know if he’d survive another pair of hands that held him up not to knock him down just for the pleasure of doing so. But if Seth always told the truth disguised as lies, Roman can’t work out if Dean’s telling him lies in the guise of truth, or if he really believes everything he says in dark rooms, the two of them sharing a bed with their hands stretched out in the gulf between them where their third should be. They could curl together, hold each other in the space, but instead they leave it there, like a gravestone, a reminder of what love becomes when one of you is always looking for the next way out.

Roman loves, he knows that, he loves too hard and too fast and too much, and Seth demanded that, needed it, needed feeding those feelings over and over. Dean has hate to reach for instead, when he looks at Seth now, but Roman’s never been good at change, at switching sides, and so when he looks at Seth, he just sees someone he loves so much that it hurts to breathe near him, looking back at him without the faintest glimmer of recognition in his eyes. When Seth looks at his title, Roman sees the look that he used to give them, sees the same love, the same adoration, the same rapture – and Roman knows, then, that he was just another shiny toy, that he was just a way to climb the ladder, that his dick was just a stepping stone to the best chapter in Seth’s story. When they write the histories, this betrayal will be forever marked as Seth’s best career move, and yet, somehow, Roman can’t bring himself to begrudge Seth this. He did what he said he was going to do, and there’s a power in that.


End file.
